15 Tips To Having A Productive Life

I have been a downer lately and i don’t know if it is school stressing me or lack of creativity but my girl told me that the best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago, the second best time is now. That made me think deep and go back to my previous life and what made me happy and here are some tips that got me really productive.

1. Check email/messages early in the morning so you protect the peak energy hours of your day for your best work.

2. Stop waiting for perfect conditions to launch a great project. Immediate action fuels a positive feedback loop that drives even more action.

3. Mess creates stress (I learned this from tennis icon Andre Agassi who said he wouldn’t let anyone touch his tennis bag because if it got disorganized, he’d get distracted). So clean out the clutter in your
office to get more done.

4. Say goodbye to the energy vampires in your life (the negative souls who steal your enthusiasm) but start a run routine. When I studied the creative lives of massively productive people like Stephen King, John Grisham and Thomas Edison, I discovered they follow strict daily routines. (i.e., when they would get up, when they would start work, when they would exercise and when they would relax). Peak productivity’s not about luck. It’s about devotion.

5. Get up at 5 am. Win the battle of the bed. Put mind over mattress. This habit alone will strengthen your willpower so it serves
you more dutifully in the key areas of your life.

6. Don’t do so many meetings. (I’ve trained the employees of our FORTUNE 500 clients on exactly how to do this – including having the few meetings they now do standing up – and it’s created breakthrough results for them).

7. Don’t say yes to every request. Most of us have a deep need to be liked. That translates into us saying yes to everything – which is the end of your elite productivity.

8. Stop multi-tasking. New research confirms that all the distractions invading our lives are rewiring the way our brains work (and drop our IQ by 5 points!). Be one of the rare-air few who develops the mental and physical discipline to have a mono-maniacal focus.

9. Workout 2X a day. This is just one of the little-known productivity tactics that I’ll walk you through in my new online training program YOUR PRODUCTIVITY UNLEASHED (details at the end of this post) but here’s the key: exercise is one of the greatest productivity tools in the world. So do 20 minutes first thing in the morning and then another workout around 6 or 7 pm to set you up for wow in the evening.

10. Drink more water. When you’re dehydrated, you’ll have far less energy. And get less done.

11. Work in 90 minute blocks with 10 minute intervals to recover and refuel (another game-changing move I personally use to do my best work).

12. Write a Stop Doing List. Every productive person obsessively sets To Do Lists. But those who play at world-class also record what they commit to stop doing. Steve Jobs said that what made Apple, Apple was not so much what they chose to build but all the projects they chose to ignore.

13. Use your commute time. If you’re commuting 30 minutes each way every day – get this: at the end of a year, you’ve spent 6 weeks of 8 hour days in your car. I encourage you to use that time to listen
to fantastic books on audio + excellent podcasts and valuable learning programs. Remember, the fastest way to double your income is to triple your rate of learning.

14. Be a contrarian. Why buy your groceries at the time the store is
busiest? Why go to movies on the most popular nights? Why hit the gym when the gym’s completely full? Do things at off-peak hours and you’ll save so many of them.

15. Get lost. Don’t be so available to everyone. I am often called Joseph the airplane boy because i always find peace in that. I turn off my devices and think, create, plan and write. Zero interruptions. Pure focus. Massive results.

I truly hope these productivity tips have been valuable to you and that I’ve been of service. Your productivity is your life made visible. Please protect it.